Gary Johnson reaching out to the Libertarian Party?

[Reluctant Republican]

Johnson would have a great chance at getting the Libertarian nomination, and he does seem to be considering it. They seem to like him, and if they gave it to Barr, they'd have no trouble giving it to Johnson,a  politician who they have always agreed with with on most issues.

I don't think he'd do much better then the average Lib though. Paul would, but that's a large part a personal following. Plus Paul would get some media coverage, being a pretty strong Republican candidate who switched parties. Johnson, not so much.

Now if Mitt's nominated, I could see the Constitution Party doing really well. but I don't think Johnson would be the golden bullet for the Libertarians.

[Reluctant Republican]

But one advantage to taking the Libertarian party line is that they have ballot access in the most states, meaning less work for his campaign. If Paul ran as an Independent or Constitution, he'd have to struggle a bit more. 

[Reluctant Republican]

I think Paul would have around 15% or so if and when he first ran third party. Especially if Romney's the nominee, you'd see many( though not all) conservative voters supporting him out of spite. However as the campaign progressed, I think we'd see an Anderson/Perot like effect, and Paul would steadily decline as voters decide they don't want to support a "spoiler". If he could somehow manage to get in the debates, he could do really well. The problem is he'd need to be doing really well(15%) to get in the debates to begin with, so it's sort of a chicken and egg situation.

I'd say he could maybe get up to 7% without being in the debates, but that's assuming everything went his way. 2-3% is more likely.